When one of the most respected radiologists in America – the former head of the radiology department at Yale University – attempted to blow the whistle on the fact that the FDA had approved a medical device manufactured by General Electric because it put out massive amounts of radiation, the FDA installed spyware to record his private emails and surfing activities (including installing cameras to snap pictures of his screen), and then used the information to smear him and other whistleblowers:

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident, but standard operating procedure. For example, whistleblowers are routinely fired before they can get traction … and then smeared as “disgruntled former employees”.

As Ellsberg himself has repeatedly pointed out, this is the same sleazy strategy employed by Nixon to personally smear whistleblowers and demonize their psyches in order to discredit the substance of their disclosures and make it uncomfortable for anyone to support them. And it works.

Anytime that a hard-nosed analysis is put forth of who our rulers are, of how their political and economic interests interlock, it is invariably denounced by Establishment liberals and conservatives (and even by many libertarians) as a “conspiracy theory of history,” “paranoid,” “economic determinist,” and even “Marxist.” These smear labels are applied across the board, even though such realistic analyses can be, and have been, made from any and all parts of the economic spectrum, from the John Birch Society to the Communist Party. The most common label is “conspiracy theorist,” almost always leveled as a hostile epithet rather than adopted by the “conspiracy theorist” himself.

In fact, anyone who questions the government in any way can be smeared with the label of “potential terrorist”. And government apologists are eager to label anyone “taking a cynical stance toward politics, mistrusting authority, endorsing democratic practices, … and displaying an inquisitive, imaginative outlook” as worthy of a Stalinist trip to the insane asylum.

Seems like it's still a democracy to me. The democracy gave us people voting for Obama and this Congress who gave us the health care law and all the other tragic craziness over the last 3.5 years. Same goes for past prez's and past congresses.

Saying we live in a Banana Republic is debatable. But if you are asking if we live in a Constitutional Republic, then the answer is most definitely 'No'.

Amy Goodwin is a psychotic socialist who thinks the answer to fix this is more taxes and bigger government; because clearly the government is not big enough if they can't stop whistleblowers before they actually blow the whistles.

Here's another bit to ponder from 1996, the downing of TWA flight 800: The sociopaths have been using extreme fascist measures for a long time. Things have gone exponentially more police state since. Everyone must come to fully understand that the MSM is only there to drive the getaway car and hide the truth.

I was surprised (a little) to find from GW in this article that the FDA even has such extreme surveillance powers. Very disturbing indeed. It also surprised me (a little) in the last year to know that even the Department of Education has their own SWAT teams.

The only question now is, which government agency does not have the power to perform domestic spying and respond with violence? Massive consolidation of personal data in real time at the new NSA facility in Utah is the next Orwellian step.

"In the way of summary, on the night of July 17, 1996, and into the early morning hours of the 18th, Bill and Hillary Clinton and Deputy National Security Adviser Sandy Berger huddled fretfully in the family quarters of the White House.

"The election they thought was in the bag no longer was.

"The air-traffic controllers had already reported in. The radar data told a story of an unknown object striking the plane seconds before it exploded. And now, eyewitness reports were flooding in."

<SNIP>

"To control the information flow, the White House hit upon a strategy that dazzled in its simplicity and in its sheer nerve. The Clintons' trusted point person, Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, took the investigation away from the professionals in the National Transportation Safety Board and gave it to the amateurs of the FBI. There was one reason why. The FBI reported to Gorelick. The NTSB did not.

"This was illegal, of course, but the media had a president to re-elect soon enough, and they were not about to scruple over details. The second part of the strategy was as simple as the first. The FBI would talk only to The New York Times. This essentially made the Times Gorelick's Ministry of Truth."

<SNIP>

"They did not even ask why when she stepped down. Always the patriot, Gorelick resigned to take one of five Democratic seats on the Sept. 11 Commission. Who knew where talk of aviation terrorism might lead? Someone had to keep talk of TWA Flight 800 off the table, just as someone had kept it off from 1996 to 2001."

<SNIP>

"The media did not want to know anyhow, and sixteen years later, they still do not want to know. Not one mainstream journalist has ever bothered to ask why the CIA was recruited to make the preposterous video that would seemingly discredit all of the eyewitness testimony. This is a shame, especially for the family members who have been left only with their grief and their unanswered questions."

although this point is minor to the article's thesis, nixon did NOT order the break-in....the whole watergate affair - including the pentagon papers and ellsburg incident - was orchestrated by the bush crime syndicate and cia....in this particular incident john dean and egil krogh were guilty parties who were working for the cia/bcs.....and cia man ben bradlee and bob woodward were the cia hacks who were press ring leaders for the for the circus resulting in resignation

nixon was framed and destroyed by bcs machinations....nixon had his own dirty laundry and was an easy mark but he did not plan or have any advanced knowledge of watergate.

as part of another coup d'etat, the bcs / cia had to remove agnew first so that they could install their own line of succession starting with nelson rockefeller. ford played ball with them on the warren commission and was responsible for the pack of lies spewing forth from allan dulles....

All of it increases regulation and centralization, all of it diminishes the power of the individual and the wealth of the individual, all of it increases the power of the state over the individual.Langleyjames it recruitment agencies

GW, the FDA is run by an Obama appointee, Dr. Hamburg, and the company they are running interference for (GE) is one of Obama's biggest supporters. Yet I only see Nixon & Bush mentioned by name. Rot starts at the top.

As for the FDA's denial, it means they did everything they said, but on the radiologists government-owned computer, rather than his own - which is a hint for everyone else NEVER to use a computer owned by someone else (.gov, .mil or company) for anything other than the most innocent purposes. It can be, and often is, monitored more than you would believe.

true, true but (1) Democracy Now seems to be the only one covering this, that's sick and (2) The FDA has been a blatant lipstick smeared whore for Big AG and Drug and Monsanto for many many administrations hiding the dangers of GMOs, aspertame, and well just about anything questionable and dangerous that still, like any good whore, can bang out a buck. More telling is the growing totalitarian state, a government that has no qualms violating every basic rule in the book and a controlled media that looks the other way.

caught this earlier on their radio show but thanks much George for bringing it to this site

The FDA approves drugs that are dangerous and bans supplements that are not. They want to tell you which vitamin you can take, but turn a blind eye to any level of skullduggery by Big Pharma. Their level of performance over the years is abysmal. They got lucky ONCE with Thalidomide...(and even that got initial scrutiny for reasons other than the big problems it eventually caused)....and the FDA has been riding on that event ever since. Time to dissolve the FDA and start over. New group. New mission. Strictly limited powers.

A veterinarian can take better care of people than almost all M.D.'s just because Vets understand the need for minerals, which if diagnosed and minerals taken properly, will eliminate most chronic diseases today.

Excellent results. Dr. Joel Wallach. He sued the FDA 5 times and won. Anybody that has the cajones to take on and beat the FDA 5 TIMES! is alright by me, and he is a great guy too.

A member of the US Armed Forces accepts a free cup of coffee from a defense contractor, is gets court-martialed, reduced-in-rank, and is not allowed to re-enlist at the end of her term of active service.

On the other hand, a Congressman or Senator flies to, and returns from, Hawaii on a corporate jet (for Free!) attended by lovely young hostessess or handsome young hosts, accepts a personal $100,000 fee for reading a speech written by a Defense Contractor ghost writer, at a week long "convention" of Defense Contractors, accepts various personal and Political Action Committee cqmpaign contributions from the same suspects, and wins re-election hands down because no challenger can possibly raise enough money to mount a credible campaign challenge.

Whose fault is it that our nation has become captive to a sham two-party system (one worse than an honestly dishonest one-party system) wholly owned and controlled by <0.1% (<16,000 working Americans) of the working American population?

"Whose fault is it that our nation has become captive to a sham two-party system"?

The Media.

It seems that they are mostly Marxist in their leanings and intend for the rest of us to be as well. This is why you shake your head and rub your eyes and yell at your screen when you just heard something you know isn't true and then keep hearing it over and over again.

It's no accident or simple oversight, those things get corrected quickly. Everything else is planned and deliberate and on-going, with purpose. None of it ever increases freedom, all of it increases regulation and centralization, all of it diminishes the power of the individual and the wealth of the individual, all of it increases the power of the state over the individual.

It's like Ayn Rand had Ted Kennedy and Lenin whispering in her ears when she wrote the book.

When government and industry join to take the fruits of the people's labor, it is indeed fascism. Crony capitalism, corporate advantage, political corruption, regulatory capture are all walls of the fascist prison.

The "case" against Julian Assange is one of the weakest, most embarassing, put-up jobs I've ever seen a western democracy participate in. It rivals the lack of WallSt prosecutions. If it doesn't make you embarassed to be an American, you haven't examined the details of it closely enough yet.

For example, the woman who later accused him of rape hosted a party in his honor, the following evening.

Sweden has dropped the charges, they just want him for questioning (if I have my facts straight); which is complete bullshit - all they want to do is gain physical custody of him, so that the US can extradite him for the WikiLeaks matter. For that, the UK and the Swedes are willing to pervert their justice systems.

What's more damaging to America: the truth about US activities, exposed by Manning and Assange; or the open evidence that the rule of law is a joke?

I think Assange turned informant when the Justice Department just forgot all about him all of the sudden, it was right around the time that the Bank of America leaks were supposed to be released, exposing all of this juicy shit. Doesn't everyone remember when they turned out to be nothing more than e-mails that barely said anything and office gossip. Were they always nothing? I doubt it. Something happened. After that, Wikilieaks became just another portal of disinformation. All we hear from Wikileaks now is how Iran is planning to destroy the world and a smattering of inconsequential crap that is supposed to make us think Wikileaks is still an independent provider of truth and vital information. Yeah, just like MSNBC, FOX, NYT, ext.

Good post. Anyone who knows anything about criminal law would find it insane that someone is being detained and extradited to question him about not wearing a condom. On second thought, anyone would find it insane.

The fact that the United States got involved in this was obviously political, but the fact that Assange broke Swedish sexual contract law by allegedly ripping off his condom during sex, after his sexual partner had made it explicit that she did not want to have sex without a condom, was not a politically created crime. It was made into a huge public extradrition dabacle because it was Julian Assange. However, the laws in Sweden are such that if a guy wants to come in his partner's face when she has made it clear that she doesn't like it, or vice versa, if a woman sticks her finger in a guy's ass when he has made it clear he doesn't like things inserted into his anus, either of these acts would be considered 'rape' and if charges were made by either 'victim' and this Swedish interpretation of rape could be proven, these acts would be procecuted. So, if a dude or a gal wants to have total freedom in the bedroom, avoid having sex with strangers in Sweden.

Based on how people, who cause grief for the powers that be, tend to die in plane crashes, have heart attacks, die in swimming pools and commit suicide; my guess is that Assange is firstly no threat and secondly most likley working for the bad guys.

While we sing "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave", America is becoming a more repressive, fascist society. Anyone with an alternate view of the 9/11 incident is labeled a conspiracy theorist. Any academician who dares adopt an alternate viewpoint on 9/11 will never get any more funding and would probably lose his job. The repression of personal freedom and personal belief is everywhere while homeland security ramps up the fear level constantly. We are at constant war - war on terror, war on drugs, war on Iran and Syria, war on truth and freedom at home. Not a single bankster has been arrested for the millions of frauds committed during the mortgage crisis. Bernanke coolly states yesterday that he knew that Barclays was engaging in Libor fraud and did nothing.

Just when you think that the US cannot possibly get more fascist, it does.

The people have been distracted and pacified to such an extent as to be completely taken by the most trivial of offerings. And god forbid questioning the validity of anything that MSM spews out.

I honestly don't think anyone will wake up until it's way past being "too late," and even then they'll wonder what the fuck hapened at all. Another scapegoat (animate or inanimate) will be named, and true freedom, as an animal and as a human, will be long forgotten in the pages of history to come.

A sad state of existence bro. Real science died in the first half of the 20th century. There are fewer and fewer real scientists, and those who want to be at the edge of progress are forced to work for soulless corporations or acathievia. And even then, they are persecuted for defending righteous or semi-righteous notions.

Honesty, truthfulness, and beneficial work is admonished. Dishonesty, secrecy, and malicious work is rewarded.